Radiation arrangements of this kind are used for keeping warm, premature babies, infants, and small children, who lie on a bed surface accessible from several sides and thus can be attended to by the appropriate personnel without hindrance.
Because of the necessary ability to examine the patient, and in order to have the highest possible freedom of movement during the treatment procedure of the patient, these radiation heaters are provided only in a portion of the region above the bed surface.
Thus, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,312,331, a treatment table for newborn babies and small children is described, above the center region of which an elongated narrow radiation heater is arranged. One such known radiation heater warms intensively the central portion of the bed surface while, because of the heat energy radially decreasing towards the border region of the bed surface, there is too little radiation energy present to supply the patient with sufficient heat energy. However, a uniform warming of the entire bed surface with heat energy evenly distributed thereover is necessary because the person to be attended to, as a consequence of his or her size, covers different areas of the bed surface and because that person must be moved during treatment to different areas on the bed surface.
A further radiation heater is disclosed in German Utility Model Registration No. 76 02 145 and is installed above the bed surface in such a way that the heat radiator is of planar configuration and nearly corresponds in its diemsnions with the dimensions of the bed surface. However, this solution presents the disadvantage that the attending personnel, who must have access from the free sides to the person lying on the bed surface and must bend above the bed surface in the course of the treatment activity, are exposed to the radiation heat at the region of the head. This leads in the case of a prolonged and continuing treatment to an intolerable heat exposure of the attending personnel and shades the patient.